Rust never sleeps, but it’s very expensive. We’re living in a golden age for rust in the military — or a dark age, depending on the way you look at it. Commanders at all levels are more aware than they’ve ever been about the hazards and costs of corrosion, which cost DoD $22.5 billion just in 2009, according to one study. The brass is convening rust conferences, pursuing new materials and technology to help defeat it, and, in the case of the Navy, completely changing its thinking about what it means for ships. Back in the day, the Navy got sick of its ships and just threw them away, on the theory that, hey, we’ll just buy new ones! But over the past few years, the service has come to realize that it has to make all of its ships last as long as they can, which means it’s focusing on rust, hulls, tanks, voids and other unglamorous parts of it ships, to keep them around for their full service lives. Or as CDR Salamander wrote: It isn’t sexy; I know.
The Navy’s part of this seems obvious — as Sen. The Infrastructure Privatization Bank | MuniLand. The first time many heard about the United States creating a infrastructure bank was in President Obama’s Thursday speech, but the idea has actually been floating around Congress for a number of years. Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut proposed the idea in 2007 with inauspicious timing. From the American Water Works Association: In an eerie coincidence, legislation to create a National Infrastructure Bank to address the need for financing of infrastructure projects was introduced with bipartisan support in the US Senate the same day a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. The horrific 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis is often used as the poster child to promote a national infrastructure bank.
In 2007 there were 75,000 other bridges in America that had the same rating of “structurally deficient” as the Minneapolis bridge; the problem continues today. The need for massive spending on our roads and bridges is well understood by everyone. (3) DEDICATED REVENUE SOURCES. San Francisco Water and Rail. I can never decide which is sadder: the Obama Administration’s token 12-15 billion dollars for national railways, or, the greenblogger, transportblogger, and mainstream media’s belief we’re pursuing a new rail policy. The United States has for years been piled high with unfunded rail projects, just waiting for a green light. But the 12-15 billion allocated so far will, at best, provide nothing more than seed money for mega projects like high-speed rail while neglecting the myriad smaller projects across the country. In the same way the Obama Administration has no energy policy, they have no transport policy.
Turning the clock back a few years, however, it’s worth recalling that John Stilgoe’s Train Time was not only well received among his graduate students at Harvard, but was also popular among hedge funds and private equity investors looking to invest in rail. -Gregor Photos: Details of Railway Maps, found in the Maps–>Railroads section of Calisphere.
The Pentagon Confronts New Enemy: Rust | Danger Room. It scours the bottom of Navy ships, invades the crevices of Air Force jets and costs the Defense Department $23 billion a year. It’s not a clandestine agent or biological weapon. In fact, it’s in your home right now. It’s rust. Apparently, rust is pretty expensive (and ugly). Fighting corrosion costs over 3 percent of the national GDP, or about $1,000 per person per year. The Defense Department estimates that it will spend $114.5 billion over the next five years on the nasty nuisance. It’s a problem because corrosion happens to anything exposed to weather — old things in particular. Even new planes aren’t safe; leaky F-22′s are expected to cost the Air Force millions. So how do we deal with all this metallic decay? Otherwise, the U.S.
Technically, the problem is bigger than just rust. There are all sorts of ways to get a grip on this pesky scourge. While the military is looking into more coating options – from aluminum- to polyurethane-based waterproofing – there are some alternatives.
Rural outsourcing helps Arkansas compete with India - Jul. 8, 2010. Onshore Technology Services CEO Shane Mayes, who launched an IT outsourcing business in MissouriBy Jennifer Alsever, contributing writerJuly 8, 2010: 3:56 AM ET (CNNMoney.com) -- Looking for skilled, low-cost labor? Forget about India and China. How about Jonesboro, Ark.? As the national unemployment rate hovers near 10%, some companies are starting to eye job-hungry areas of the country as prime candidates for the kind of outsourced work that once would have gone overseas. Dubbed "ruralsourcing," "rural outsourcing" and "onshoring," the practice relies on two simple premises: Smaller towns need jobs, and they offer a cheaper cost of living than urban centers. So businesses that outsource work to these areas can expect to pay less -- rates are often as much as 25% to 50% lower -- than if they were hiring urbanites with comparable skills.
"It's extremely timely given our economic climate," says Mary Lacity, an information systems professor at the University of Missouri-St. Share this. Why Emergency Rooms Are Packed - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan. Net Zero Water. Designing water-neutral homes Water and climate change are inextricably linked. As the planet warms, weather patterns will shift, exacerbating drought in some areas and delivering more rainfall to others. Water itself requires energy to deliver, so excess use compounds our energy problems.
And many renewable sources of power, such as solar, require massive amounts of water as an input, creating further pressure on limited resources. Net zero water is an analogous concept to net zero energy. Through a combination of rainfall harvesting, aggressive conservation, and water recycling, buildings can achieve self-sufficiency from the water “grid.” At least in theory. To achieve water independence, buildings divide available sources of water into categories and treat them accordingly. Grey water can be cleaned by filtering it through a biological wastewater treatment system such as the Living Machine, a sort of wetlands in a box containing plants, bacteria, plankton, even snails and clams.
Sinkholes | World news. Speed Bump by Dave Coverly on Creators.